Archive for Mr Toppit

In April 1981, times, as they say, were a-changing. Daylight saving time is introduced in the USSR, the rock band Yes broke up and at the McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket the Red Wings and the Red Sox battled it out in what became the longest professional baseball game in history.

More importantly April 1981 also saw the end of children’s author Arthur Hayman’s life, as he was knocked down and out of this world by a cement mixer truck on the streets of Soho. After his death his books remained dark curios for a few interested fans until American chat show host Laurie Clow brought The Hayseed Chroniclesto millions.

Now, exactly 28 years on from the day of his death, two popular British chat-show hosts, Richard & Judy have announced thatMr Toppit, a novelisation of Arthur and his family’s story, will feature as part of their Summer Reading programme. I guess Oscar Wilde was right; life does imitate art far more than art imitates life.

Having now finished reading Charles Elton’s Mr Toppit, I can certainly see why it has touched a nerve. Perhaps it is a little too close to the bone. It’s an extraordinary read, and yes, of course it exaggerates the truth a little, but in time I believe that the Haymans will come round to the fact that Charles and Penguin have done quite a service in preserving the Hayseed legacy.

Last week I lunched with a legend. Without this man’s guile, temerity and good grace we, the people of the world, would not have had the pleasure of reading Arthur Hayman’s Hayseed Chronicles.

Graham Carter, Arthur’s onetime editor and publisher, now divides his time between his role as a literary agent and family life. During the leisurely lunch Graham, a natural raconteur, regaled me with his recollections of Arthur, Martha (pictured below in the Darkwood), Luke and Rachel as well as his experience of the Hayseed phenomenon in the 1980s.

While he turned down Charles Elton’s request for an interview (out of respect for the Hayman family) he is, like myself, curious to see if Penguin’s publication of Mr Toppit will spark a revival of his ‘old books’ as he calls them. As shrewd as ever, he has suggested to his successor at The Carter Press to rush through some re-editions of all five books of The Hayseed Chronicles.

After lunch, Graham took me back to his rather palatial office on the Strand to show me some of his own ephemera, which he kindly allowed me to photograph and reproduce here. My particular favourites are these samples of his correspondance. In a letter from Arthur to Graham, Arthur notes his humbling pleasure at receiving finished copies of Garden Grown.

Martha’s caustic wit is on full show here, as she argues with the direction the dutch publisher’s design department are taking with their edition.

His collection also included this wonderful Poloroid of Luke Hayman standing uncomfortably next to the actor Toby Luttrell, on set at the BBC. As a slight aside, I have just read about this very moment in Mr Toppit, and Charles Elton does have a knack for conjuring the excruciating awkwardness this incident produced in Luke.

As lunch drifted into late afternoon, and the sun began its decent over the Thames, I thanked Graham for his time and kindness. He had given me so much in those brief hours I was in awe and indebted. As I made my way from his office I left this remarkable man, blue in the lip from wine and wet in the eye from memories of a dear old friend, long gone, but not forgotten.

[Disclaimer: After several attempts of sountracking the below narrative to the above video, I have dear readers, given up. I reproduce the original script below for your pleasure.]

On a cold January morning I took a journey into the Darkwood. To Linton in Dorset. To the Hayman estate. Where Arthur wrote his great works, where Luke outwitted Mr Toppit and where Martha still lives to this day.

Upon arriving at the Hayman House I found the gate open but marked private, strictly no access. I guessed this was to prevent fans like myself from walking up to their door. I decided to follow the road round to enter the Darkwood from a bridleway a few miles from the House. On route I passed the now legendary graffiti warning on the periphery wall.

On entering the Darkwood I noticed a ‘T’ made up from sticks on the floor, I presumed I wasn’t the only fan talking a walk through the woods that day.

What started as a bright sunny day quickly turned bitter. I noticed several markings in the trees, ‘Mr Toppit was here’, I followed them to see where they lead. As more appeared, I thought I must be getting close to the Hayman house.

As I ventured deeper into the woods, I came across a series of strange pyres and bivouacs, perhaps built by other fans camping out in the Darkwood in search of Mr Toppit, or a rare glimpse of Martha Hayman.

At last, I caught sight of the Hayman House. But a strange lady with a dog shooed me away, the dog’s eyes were ablaze with warning. I took one final photograph of the house and then rushed back through the woods to safety.

Upon hearing of Penguin’s publication of Charles Elton’s Mr Toppit, I was struck by a gamut of emotions. Surprise, fear, anger, intrigue, hunger. Upon reading it (I am now almost half way through the copy kindly sent to me – a full review will follow, but I must say I am rather enjoying it) I was deeply moved to see the world of Arthur, his family and his creations brought vividly back to life.

Mr Elton might just succeed in doing today what Laurie Clow achieved all those years ago across the Atlantic: breathe fresh life into the dormant majesty of The Hayseed Chronicles.

The signs of success are already apparent. The Telegraph ran a story this weekend about the scariest villains from fiction past and present. The White Witch sealed the top spot, but the report claims that “Mr Toppit…originally in The Hayseed Chronicles…narrowly failed to make the top ten”.

In publicisingMr Toppit, Penguin cannot help but introduce a new legion of fans to The Hayseed Chronicles as more and more people will see the name of Arthur Hayman and his creations, back where they belong, amongst the well-kerned type of the forth estate.

This, my readers, is a truly awful record. I discovered it digging through a second hand vinyl shop on Berwick Street and was instantly drawn to the sleeve illustration. At first glance it seemed to be inspired by the original jacket for Arthur Hayman’s final book in The Hayseed Chronicles, Darkwood. Lifting the record from the rack, my suspicions were confirmed.

I immediately snapped it up and spent a giddy half hour on the bus home wondering what on earth it might sound like. However, the subsequent 62 minutes of actually listening to Dr Bumble’s Magic Drone Machine and the Colony of Bees performing Songs from the Darkwood was a little less fruitful. I was left feeling as if an hour of my life had been irrevocably lost and that the blame for this intense melancholy lay squarely on the shoulders of this so called ‘Doctor’.

Let me try to explain. The album consists of five songs or ‘movements’ in which the narrative of Hayman’s Darkwood is set unconvincingly to music. The album progs through one and a half sides of terminal mediocrity before culminating in a 15 minute finale consisting of Arthur’s now legendary closing line

And out of the Darkwood Mr Toppit comes, and he comes not for you, or for me, but for all of us

repeated ad nauseam in a delivery that makes David St. Hubbins sound Shakespearean by comparison. These words are violently accompanied by a quintessentially Wakemanesque keyboard and Theremin solo.